The Reverend Dawson and Dr Little

A Short History of Sutton Benger; Part Seven

The Reverend Richard Dawson, MA, was born in Seacombe, Cheshire, in 1830; his father was Richard Crosbie Dawson. The Reverend Dawson came to Sutton Benger in 1862, and a year later he married Alice Simmons; he was 32 and she was only 18. The Dawsons had several children in the next 16 years; all the sons took the middle name ‘Crosbie’ like their grandfather.

All Saints Church, 1904

The village doctor at this time was Edward Moore Little; he lived in The Bell House, and there was an entrance to his surgery from Bellside; the door is no longer there, but the outline showing where it used to be can still be seen in the white paintwork on the wall. Dr Little had arrived in the village in the late 1860s as a newly-qualified doctor; he had been born in Biddestone and his wife Louisa was from Chippenham. They were both about the same age as Alice Dawson. They also had young children, and one can imagine that the two families socialised together.

The Bell House when it was the village doctor's home / surgery

However, Dr Little died in 1876; his widow, Louisa, moved with her children to a house in New Road, Chippenham. A new doctor – Dr Percie Garlike – moved in to The Bell House with his family. And then Alice Dawson died in 1879; the Reverend Richard Dawson took some time away from the village, and in 1881 he was living in Oxford in a house with other clergy, but without his children. Where were they …?

The 1881 Census shows that not only were Louisa Little’s own children living with her in Chippenham, but she was also caring for the Dawson children. And on 13 February 1882, in the Parish Church of St Paul, Chippenham, the Reverend Richard Dawson married Louisa Little. They returned to Sutton Benger together, and he continued as Vicar until 1903.

All Saints Church, c. 1903

Is there any particular story from Sutton Benger’s past that you want to know more about? Please get in touch:

by phone: 01249 721731
by email: hello@bengertrails.co.uk